My Husband's Wife(26)

Charlie wasn’t really dead. Instead, he was mixed up with eggshells and Brussels sprout peelings and teabags. Carla had to dig deep into the bin to find him, and by the time she did, her uniform was stained and smelly.

‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered. ‘It will be all right.’ Then carefully, very carefully, she held him in her arms while waiting around the corner for Mamma. (If she’d stayed at the school gates, someone would have wanted to know what she was doing there.)

It didn’t matter that Charlie wasn’t speaking. She only had to wait for three days and then he would be all right again. It would be the same for all of them. The priest had said so.

But now, the more she shifted from one foot to another, the more Carla began to wonder if she and Mamma had missed each other. All the other children had gone home. Even the teachers.

The sky was dark. It would nearly be winter in the valley at home. The cold months there, Mamma often said wistfully, were wonderful! There was always a fire with loved ones sitting round it. Their sing-songs and their arms warmed you up, sent fire through your belly. Not like here where the greedy electric meter gobbled up coins.

Start walking. At first, Charlie’s voice was so soft that she hardly heard it. Then it got louder.

‘I knew you’d get better,’ she said, gently stroking his poor torn, stained fur.

But which way should she go? Maybe right at the crossroads. Now where was she? Perhaps she ought to go left now. Usually, when Mamma met her, they danced along the pavements so fast that it was hard to keep track of the lefts and the rights and the lefts again. They would chatter too about their day. (‘There is this new perfume, my little one. My manageress, she has lent me a brand-new bottle to try it out. Smell it! What do you think?’)

And she would tell Mamma about hers while crossing her fingers. (‘I got top marks in maths again.’)

They’d passed a park now. Was it a different one from the park near their home? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Maybe if they went on, she might spot the shop where she and Mamma sometimes stopped to look at the magazines. ‘You must buy if you want to look,’ the man at the counter would tell them. But so far, there was no sign of the man or his shop. Carla felt her chest tighten and her palms sweat. Where were they?

Look, whispered Charlie weakly. Over there.

A shiny car! The same blue shiny car that sometimes parked outside their flat on a Tuesday or Thursday evening and sometimes on a Sunday.

But today was Monday.

It is Larry, whispered Charlie again. See the hat?

But the woman sitting next to him was not Mamma. Her hair was even blonder than Lily’s – yellowy white – and her lipstick was bright red.

Now Larry was pressing the lady’s lips hard. The teacher had shown them a film about that. If someone stopped breathing, you had to make your own breath mix with theirs to give them life.

Feverishly, Carla knocked on the window of the car. ‘Are you all right?’

Instantly, the yellow-white-haired woman and Larry sprang apart. There was red on his mouth too. Carla felt her heart pounding.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he shouted.

It was a loud shout that came through the window even though it was closed. It hurt her ears.

‘I’m lost.’ Carla didn’t mean to cry, but now that she was safe, she could admit she’d been scared walking down those roads, in the dark. ‘Charlie made me late and Mamma wasn’t at the gate. I think she may have gone home. Or else she is late from work again …’

‘What’s she saying, Larry love?’

Only then did Carla realize she had lapsed into the mother language.

‘Wait there.’

For a minute, Carla thought that Larry was speaking to her. But then she saw he was addressing the red-mouthed lady. Suddenly, she found herself being marched away from the car towards the corner of the road. ‘What did you see? Tell me.’

His voice sounded different from Tuesdays and Thursdays and the sometimes-Sundays. It was hard, like old skin on your foot which you had to smooth off every evening, just as Mamma did with a grey stone in the shower. (‘Only the English take baths, my little one. So dirty!’)

Carla’s mouth was so dry that it took time for the words to come out. ‘I saw you pushing your mouth against that woman’s. Your lips are all red, like hers.’

‘What do you mean?’ His grip on her arm was getting tighter.

Carla felt herself getting more scared. ‘Like the stuff on your collar,’ she whispered.

He glanced down and wiped away the red smear. His breath was so close that she could smell the whisky in his mouth. Sometimes, Mamma did not eat dinner so that they could afford to buy Larry’s whisky. It was important. A man needed to feel welcomed. Whisky and dancing. And in return, the rent would be paid. The electric meter would be sorted. Larry had paid the phone bill again. It is worth it, cara mia. Trust me.

‘Hah!’ Then his face came close to hers. She could see the hairs in his nose. ‘Very clever,’ he said, marching her fast along the pavement. ‘If you’re so clever, Carla, why don’t you tell me what little present I can buy you. So we don’t have to tell your mother about today.’

Remember, whispered Charlie. Remember the film?

Of course. She and Mamma had watched a story on television the other night. It had been late and she hadn’t been able to sleep. So she’d crept out of bed and snuggled up with Mamma on the sofa. The film had been about a young boy who had seen a couple stealing from a shop. The couple had given him money for not saying anything.